Release 6: Behaviour and Motives

Following on this training, I have been thinking some more about the main concept behind the whole exercise: Behaviour and Motives - a theory developed by McClelland. Basically, it provides an insight and offers a model to the fact that each behaviour we exhibit can be tracked back to 3 social motives (Achievement, Affiliation, Power).

The entire Theory is more complicated than what we (the participants) could see in 2 days, but some of the exercises we did around this theory had a significant impact on me and highlighted some of the reasons I feel about my current job the way I do...

Bottom line is, knowing about this theory has allowed me to take a new look at what I really like doing, where it comes from, and how to make sure that I can optimise the capacity that I represent depending on the type of role I am asked to play in an organisation.

Using it at (XP) team level:

It is also extremely helpful to keep this concept in mind at team level...

Of course the coach's role is to ensure that the team follows the defined and agreed technical practices, that the whole delivery heartbeat is preserved, that communication is flowing... Behaviour pattern matching is used to "spot" any disfunction within the team and resolve this before it starts having an adverse effect on the delivery, the velocity, the morale.

In light of what the Behaviour and Motives theory brought me, I am reinforced in the view that it is completely unfair to expect the same behaviour from everyone on a team. Instead, I am now looking at how to ensure that we get the best out of people depending on what really motivates them and what they really value.

By making this statement explicit to the entire team, the result is that any behaviour is accepted (within working environment limits of course) within then team and is understood for what it is. That is the step 1.

Step 2 is to look at ALL the behaviours exhibited by ALL of us and to filter the positive ones and the negative ones: from there, we can ensure that all team members end up showing positive behaviours that they actually feel comfortable with and contributes to the team and the whole XP stated synergy.

Release 6: Want Power? Give it away then!

Last bit on Ben Zander, promised...

One thing that Zander uses to get the best out of the people he directs is to apply the "If you want more power, give it away" rule.

I have been running an Team organisation SPIKE for the last 2 weeks to try this one out.

The setup: I am currently accountable for the delivery of 2 projects that are both important to the Business in a way that has made me allocate a set team capacity for each project.

I have decided to focus primarily on one of these projects (ie: to ensure that all conditions of satisfaction for this project are met). Which only left me with a personal remaining capacity well under what is required to satisfy the conditions of satisfaction for the second project.

I have therefore decided to give some of my power away. Some people call it to delegate, but actually, I think I am doing more than that.

Yes, I have "given" the accountability of the delivery of the second project to somebody else, and that is delegating, and this person is still reporting to me, still is a member of the team I manage.

On the other hand, I have been extremely clear from the start on what I will and won't do:
- I will provide you with the road map of how to start, who to talk to and set some short term objectives for you
- I want your word that whatever I ask you to do you feel comfortable doing them, or trying to do them
- I will not be behind you to check what you are doing
- I will be clear on the longer outcomes I expect, not on how you get there
- I will ALWAYS be availble to help you whenever you need help
- I will ALWAYS be availble for advice would you need them
- I will NEVER turn my back on you if you make a mistake
- I will take the political heat away from you: dealing with politics is not an outcome I want you to manage

All in all, this SPIKE has been running for the last 2 weeks. I go to the planning games, stand up meetings, retrospectives and steering committees with that person, not as is shadow, but more has a member of his team (if that makes sense).

He does lead that piece of work, in which I have tasks to deliver, and I report to him in this respect.

The relationship has been working quite nicely, both projects are starting to come back in line with their respective release plans.

Customers and my peers now engage with him in a different way to the way they used to only 2 weeks ago. His peers also have changed attitude and look so much happier now that there is actually somebody to concentrate on helping them full time, and who actually has the power to take decisions without having to get back to me to check that they can do so and so. Bloody hell! I am pleased with the result!

Conclusion:

In the past, I did manage to get pretty much the same type of result with somebody else in another team, and for different reasons. What I found with the latest SPIKE I describe here is that I think I now partially know why it does work: the Giving the Power away... definitely.

Does that give me more power? As a manager, I am definitely being more powerful by having done this. In a bizarre way, it also makes me less powerful, because I have proved that other people, given the right opportunity and power attributes could do my "delivery" job just as well as me, and probably for less money.

mmh... maybe I should stop this SPIKE right now ;-)

Release 6: Everybody gets an "A"

From the same Ben Zander mentioned in previous posts...

Ben Zander is also a tutor/teacher for young (and less young) musiciancs.

At the beginning of the course, he wants to avoid the behaviour of participants which is to compare themselves to the others. He believes that progress by comparion does not allow people to reach their actual full potential.

And yes, in the end, some people will perform better than some others, but at least he wants everyone to have developped to their streched limits.

How does he do that? On the first day of the course, he gives everybody and "A". Everybody gets the same mark for the course! And the even have sarted!

But ahhh, there is a condition... In order to get an "A", everybody has to write the story of who they will be at the end of the course, and how great they will be.

This in effect create the right conditions for people to focus on comparing who they want to be with who they are today, and apparently it works. Zander says that it allows people to see the world as a "world of possibility".

When introducing XP in an organisation, comparing XP with the existing approach will happen. What is damageable for XP is if its implementation is driven by this comparison as opposed to being driven by the results we know it can produce.

Give everybody an "A" on your team, ask them to write the story of what the results will be in 1 year,and see what happens.

Some time ago, I ran a "past and future future retrospective" with one of the team I was working with (mentioned by Rachel Davies in the Retrospectives Yahoo Group).

The results were really interesting, and what we found is that some things that people wanted to see happen in the future, although they could be seen hard to achieve actually happened.

Release 6: Listening from full...

The first thing I want to talk about is the concept of "listening from full".

What is this?

Basically, it refers to the fact that when we enter interpersonal interactions, a number of conversations actually occur on top of the obvious audible one.

For instance, 2 people start having a chat about something.
The first conversation that happens is the one we could hear. What people tell each other. This is the public conversation.
There are in this example 2 more conversations happening.
Two other conversations are happening at the same time: each of the involved individuals will actually have a private conversation, that is “in their head”.

So now we have Private and Public conversations. How important is this for us?

Well, people are at the very foundation of anything we do in Agile. And the way they interact, exchange ideas, raise issues and solve problems.

In XP, a formal interaction heartbeat is started and maintained through Planning Games, Stand Up meetings, Show and Tell meetings, Retrospective meetings, and other important interactions happen in a less formalised and monitored when pairing, talking to team members or the customer during the day.

During the personal development course I have recently been through, we did some exercises to demonstrate how much our attention can shift from Public to Private conversation. It is remarkable how much we actually focus on the Private part and how little we will focus on listening.

One of the reasons for this is that the Public conversation is about understanding the other, the Private conversation is all about planning what we will say next and “how to look good” (ie: not say anything stupid, convert the other to our idea or point of view, etc…).

Sometimes, we have private conversations about completely unrelated subjects to the Public conversation going on. Altogether, Private conversations start because we are “listening from full” (pre-occupied, have no time, can’t be bothered, etc…)

During the same training course, we also practiced the opposite art which is to “listen from nothing”. I am not going to go into more detail about the exercise, but the result I experienced were quite extraordinary: the level of information I could pick up, the emotions, possible motives of the person talking to me where truly enhanced.

How does that help us? As mentioned, Agile relies on human interactions, and it is very likely that most of us have Private conversations during these. What type of result could we expect if, as part of method, XP practitioners could be brought to listening from nothing…

I will try and experiment with my current team, and hopefully come back to these subject later on with some findings.

Release 6: "Rule number 6!"

We saw some great clips from Ben Zander during the training I keep refering to form a guy called Benjamin Zander. Benjamin Zander is an Orchestra Conductor, Music Teacher, Speaker on Motivation and Leadership, and has co-produced various IP products (books, videos) on these subjects.

This is the first post in reaction to Zander's message. More will come in this iteration.

So, "Rule number 6" then!

Zander tells this story of people bursting into the prime minister's office shouting and screaming, completely disorientated and obviously quite concerned about important things... The Prime Minister happens to be in a meeting with the President of another country. Every time somebody enters the room in such a style, the Prime Minister says "Please, remember rule number 6 will you?". And every time he mentions that Rule Number 6, people who were 1 minute ago in a real state instantaneously calm down and leave the room.

At the end of the meeting, the other President asks the PM, but what is Rule number 6? The PM replies "Don’t take yourself so goddamn seriously". The President then asks "But what are the other Rules?", to which the PM replies "they aren't any".

Zander has lived and witnessed events in his life, and the whole relativity of how seriously we take ourselves has appeared to him as a real blocker to becoming what we could become.

In XP teams, we take ourselves seriously! We have to. It is all about money! Our customers want us to be serious, our peers require seriousness from us, we impose on ourselves to be serious in order to impress others, progress in the hirearchy and get better paid (;-).

On the other hand, seriousness creates a barricade between us as we are today and a world of possibilities.

If anything, this post is an advice for you to go and buy Zander's book: "The Art of Possibility"

Iteration 6: Planning Game

"I have been on a personal development course for 5 days over the last 3 weeks. Some of it has been highly inspirational. This iteration is devoted to talking about some of the things I have learned and which could be used within the Agile world."

New stories:

Story ID: 6.1
Estimate: 10
Type: BAU
Status: Started
Value: 10

Description:
As an XP practitioner, I want to record some of the aspects of the course I have just been through in terms of leadership and people management. This is so that I can consciously re-use some of the concepts and techniques we saw as part of my job, eventually making me better at what I do.

Acceptance criteria:

• The concept/theme/technique must be explained or additional resource must be provided.
• Use of the concept/theme/technique must be explained in blog entry.

Tasks:

• Do list of concept/theme/technique that need to be discussed on this blog

Draw original comments or findings or SPIKE stories if needed
Post Blog entries

Start using some of the concept/theme/technique and feed back on the blog

Iteration 5: Retrospective

Outcome:

Writting story 5.1 allowed me to focus on finding/reading other people's work (which I would normally not find the time for naturally). I managed to find some external posts and articles to comment on.

What worked well:

I reckon some events and views used to create these posts have "related" interests with XP and Agile in general.

What did not work so well:

Nothing really ground breaking in this iteration and the posts generated. I also find it easier to write posts based on my experience and feelings rather than commenting on other people's work.
I did not find 1 piece of material to comment on per day...

Puzzles:

What shall my next Iteration outcome be...